The Captain recommends -

02/11/2004

Muslim prohibition against - yoga!

Very interesting! According to this article (German), the Egyptian Great Mufti has issued a fatwa prohibiting muslim from practising yoga. The reasons quoted are: "Yoga pupils practise movements which express idolatry. They derive directly from heathendom and fetishism and thus contradict Islam."

The article goes on to quote upper level Cairo yoga practitioners who consider themselves faithful muslim, but they say that this fatwa is completely out of touch. I wonder, though, whether that is really true, and whether those upper class people are not out of touch themselves, namely with the large majority of their country's population. At any rate, this fatwa once again proves Islam's inacceptable lack of tolerance towards other religions. It may not be much different in that from other religions like, say, the catholic church, but unfortunately muslim authorities probably have much more sway with their followers.